


the sound of drowned flames

by m_peridot



Series: implications of a civilian mindset [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Chuunin Exams, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Mind Games, Psychological Horror, Shinobi Mindset, and how that goes up in flames, sakura's obsession with sasuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_peridot/pseuds/m_peridot
Summary: What does it take to break a civilian in the guise of a shinobi?For Haruno Sakura, maybe it's confrontation - maybe it's the lull between panicked violence that allows for clarity. Maybe it's finally seeing the distortion in her mindset.Maybe it's Orochimaru - the sheer overwhelming power that forces her to the ground, forces her to see what she has willingly ignored. Maybe it only hits in the moments before the preliminary matches of her first Chuunin Exam.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino
Series: implications of a civilian mindset [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898506
Comments: 3
Kudos: 86





	1. first stage: lucidity

It does not start during her genin tests, both Iruka-sensei’s or Kakashi’s; it does not start during the awful mission to Wave (though she is terrified); it does not start during Orochimaru’s attack in the Forest of Death. It is at twelve that she begins a slow sinking, and it starts right before Sasuke’s preliminary match. 

Because that was when she asked him to step down. 

“Sasuke-kun… you should also withdraw.” It is said in a low, desperate voice, because Sakura has just escaped a  _ Sannin _ , and Sasuke-kun cannot be allowed to lose control. Because it is the pragmatic choice, the  _ safe _ choice, and because Sakura loves the brooding Avenger with all that she knows is love.

“You’ve been strange since Orochimaru attacked you. Your mark still hurts—if you continue…”

And Sakura, perhaps more than anyone, knows Sasuke. She has done her research—she is the scholar of their class, perhaps the  _ only  _ scholar, the only one who hoards knowledge and information like a shinobi hoards their techniques—and she reads the last Uchiha like a torn and tattered book, of which only the middle part is intact. Sasuke  _ hurts _ . It is in his gait, his minute distractions, his left arm twitching as his shoulder sends him another wave of pain. (It is in his expression, his visage—was carved into him from the day that he came back to the Academy after a month of absence and changed so drastically.)

“I’m afraid.” It comes out without voluntary control, a quavering voice, and so so soft. Barely above her heartbeat, but her boys know her—perhaps not as well as she knows them, because they were always more concerned with their rivalry—but they know her all the same. So they hear.

Sakura rushes the next words out.

This is stronger, this is Sakura trying desperately to hold onto her emotions to gain some sliver of the control spiraling out of her grasp: “You’re in no condition to fight! I can see it—the pain that you’ve been hiding all this time.”

This is anger to hide the fear.

(And it is a fear greater than that she felt on the Bridge—then it had been shock that hazed her vivion, she had no time to contemplate it, no time to truly be afraid—but this,  _ this _ —Orochimaru, and she  _ knows _ how dangerous he is,  _ knows  _ that the black marks that spread across Sasuke’s skin like moving brands was his fault, that the mad genius, the student of the Professor, has designs for her most broken teammate. Perhaps at that time, she had been frozen ( _ useless _ ) but now that she was in her right mind, now that she could think clearly—thoughts framed by her fear—there is only one solution that Sasuke can take, that he  _ should _ take.)

Sasuke—when in the course of her outburst did she forget the honorific?—swings around to her, eyes dark and burning embers, fanned by her words. When he tells her to shut up—

She is not surprised.

(She knows him.)

The numbness starts in her heart, and this is the beginning.

“Whatever you say, I’m still going to tell Sensei—”

(But it is only a half-effort, the numbness has already forced her resignation.)

“Be quiet!”

And suddenly, she sees him. Before, it had been obscured by her fanaticism, by her obsession, but ironically, it is her worry for him, her  _ caring _ , that opens her eyes. Because she disagrees with him, she  _ wants him safe _ , but he would risk his life, desperate to prove his strength.

(Because she already knew.)

The moment of clarity stretches into a lifetime of stolen moments before it snaps.

She does not remember when she started to cry. The tears run, burning a brand over filthy skin and stinging the myriad of shallow cuts and half dressed wounds, and she no longer cares that she looks like a tired, dirty, weak child. 

(And if she were still civilian, she would be. But she is a shinobi, and shinobi are  _ adults _ —)

Sakura doesn’t believe she will ever stop loving him—he is her teammate: they have shed blood together, both their own and others, and there is nothing that ties a red string tighter, constricting breath, than the sensation of protecting a heartbeat. Sakura doesn’t believe she will ever stop loving him, but her obsession’s burning is drowned in the rather uncomfortable truth that Sasuke is a suicidal, desperate boy who would willingly throw himself and  _ that man _ off a cliff for the sake of silencing the agonized screaming inside his head. 

(Because she suddenly realizes how odd, how  _ horrifying _ it is that Sasuke’s life purpose is  _ murder _ .)

(Sakura is a civilian. Was a civilian. Shinobi find the darkness comforting and the taste of blood an old friend, but Sakura has nightmares when she cannot see and cries when she bleeds.)

She watches him fight with dull eyes, watches him be spirited away by a seemingly flippant Kakashi, and she feels the numbness spread. Inner screams and yells, angry, frustrated, frightened—her split demands that she get up and  _ do something _ , but Sakura merely stares at the grey concrete and wonders what it means to love someone and give up on them.

(The numbness spreads, paralyzes—she is so  _ tired. _ )

When her name is called, Sakura peers, apathetic, up at the screen to the words:  _ Haruno Sakura vs Yamanaka Ino _ . Inner is truly panicking now; nothing she does is affecting Outer, and the main consciousness  _ won’t move _ .

Half a minute passes and Inner makes an executive decision to take over.

(Half a minute passes and the audience holds their breath.)

[Sakura] jumps down to face Ino.

“Right now, I have no intention of fighting over Sasuke-kun with you—“

Inner smirks, a desperate, crazed thing, as her illusion world shivers at the impact. She knows the truth that has made Outer comatose, knows but does not acknowledge it, because Sasuke-kun has become their concrete—a constant. Their feelings for him drowned out the fear and trembling, made them strong, and Inner doesn’t know how to cope without a focus. 

She needs this fight, she needs to prove to herself and Outer that they are fine, that they are  _ adequate _ without him. 

So she taunts.

But Ino is not a Yamanaka for nothing, Ino is not her  _ first friend  _ for nothing. She sees the minute signs, the smile too wide, a barely there quiver—she sees her desperation—but they are still friends, so she simply grins, feral and eager, and declares an all out match. 

The first punch takes Ino off guard, though she had acknowledged the match. Sakura has  _ trained _ since Wave, and even before it. For all her fixation on Sasuke, Sakura is a kunoichi. She gave up her diet when she realized that she couldn’t stay awake after she came home (when her civilian mother, who had seen her collapse, hysterically asked if she was alright) and realized that she would kill herself if she ever advanced in rank. Self-preservation and desperation are not pretty motivators; they lead to the gasping unconsciousness of self-destruction through single-minded fear. But they are enough.

And she knows Ino is strong for their age; Sakura knows that she doesn’t have any special abilities or clan secrets. But Ino does not know desperation yet, and that gives Sakura an edge.

Ino may be better at taijutsu, may be faster, stronger, more experienced, but Sakura fights with the intent to kill—Kakashi’s test comes back to her, and she thinks she finally realizes what he meant. They match blows; Sakura’s pinpoint chakra control allows her to keep up though she is flagging. 

They trade blows and fall apart, Sakura taking this chance to catch her breath, even as Ino rants, incensed by her words. (Sakura knows her friend, knows that being pretty is not what she truly cares about, but this is a promotion match and she needs every advantage she can get—and if that is to use Ino’s anger against her, she will.)

So when Ino snaps, she expects it. What she doesn’t expect is the hair; that when she dodges the first shintenshin, it will coil around her ankles like vipers and that her mind will be broken into. 

Sakura slumps. 


	2. first stage: inertia

Ino expects to win the match when her ploy pays off and the shintenshin connects.

Most of the _room_ expects her to win when the Yamanaka’s famed jutsu is cast. 

But then there is only silence.

_What Ino expects is a dark landscape. She expects it to be as if Sakura is sleeping, as if they had simply switched bodies. She expects to be able to raise her hand and declare her forfeit._

_Instead, she gets stuck halfway._

_The Yamanaka have an excess of Yin chakra—much like the Nara, but aimed towards a different end. It concentrates in a different section of their brain, the supramarginal gyrus. It controls empathy, and combined with enough Yin chakra can create the Yamanaka’s signature jutsus, allowing the user to connect with another’s brain, alter or take control of it by becoming part of that mind._

_The shintenshin specifically targets the conscious mind, or the_ self _, and shuts it down. This allows the caster’s transferred mind to command the body to actions that the original would never have considered, such as forfeiting. The original mind is merely sleeping; of the Yamanaka jutsu, it is the gentlest… that is for the majority of the population._

_But Sakura—though she has pitiful reserves, it has always been her lack of Yang chakra that leaves her deficient. For Sakura, her Yin chakra—a larger pool than most, some of it hereditary, most of it honed through constant constant activity—is concentrated in her cerebrum, and more specifically, the right frontal lobe, which controls the mind’s sense of self._

_(Sakura has always been_ too _self-aware.)_

_Her mind is sensitive to change, to chakra, because there are_ two _entities housed there. Sakura feels the breach as a branding iron, an attempt to control her._

_So when Ino’s chakra breaches Sakura’s mind, the right frontal lobe and the chakra from the primary self—Outer, who was already in a semi-comatose state—redirects the foreign invader to the “mental workplace,” a series of interconnected parts of the brain, a web of chakra that creates a imaginary landscape._

_So they dream._

_Darkness._

It is mist that defines the uncertain.

A heavy intangible, it weighs a burden of an ocean and yet nothing at all, and Ino thinks that she will drown. The eddies swirl, and she wonders if they are above ground or in the depth of the sea. The mist parts sometimes and she thinks that she can see… shapes. But they are too thin, too tall to be human, if they are, in fact, there. The mist clings to her, an uncomfortable second skin of foreign chakra, and she instinctively knows that it is unnatural, that it does not _belong_.

(or maybe it is her that doesn’t belong—regardless, there is a distinctly hostile tinge to the heavy air)

She cannot see the ground when she looks down, and the feeling of vertigo increases and amplifies. She is disoriented, and for a shinobi, that is terrifying. 

As _wrong_ as the chakra feels, Ino feels the urge to follow it to its source. It is more of a horrified fascination—like seeing a trail of blood and tracing it back instinctively to the dead body. The dread increases as she nears, and a small part of her wants to scream at her lack of common sense. 

_Eight choices_

Unsteady, as if the ground itself is moving, _breathing_ . Ino’s heart stutters; her lungs are slowly filling as she can only breathe in the foreign chakra. It is denser than air; her chest strains against the oppressive weight. She wonders if it will consume her, if eventually the intake of the wrong lifeforce could destroy her existence, create a paradox, a dissonance between the body and mind. She wonders if when a shinobi falls, their chakra is released, seeking life; if she has breathed in a dying energy, a _parasite_. 

_Liver_

She sways, her eyes snap down and the crimson stain spreads. Red spider lilies unfurling and withering on her clothes, on her too pale skin. There is no pain, only the weakening of the body as it loses strength with the liquid seeping out. Crimson to black and black to ashes; they trickle down her body, streaking a dead grey.

_Lungs_

Inhale, slowly and slower, the exhale as defeat. The desperation is smothered under the steadiness of her decreasing lung capacity—she is not gasping, something about the heaviness forbids that, forbids her sounds of desperation. Air is a necessity, but the parasite poisons her supply, and she no longer knows if her body is her own. If another’s blood keeps you standing, to whom do you belong?

_Spine_

Ino stands straight-backed, but the pressure would see her bend. It curves along her spine, a snake, moving through the parasites and whispering. She feels stripped, as if her skin had been ever so incrementally peeled back; she imagines that it begins with her fingertips, the crease where her fingernails attach. There is nothing concrete and she does not look down at her body (when had it turned foreign to her?), but the pressure remains, an intangible concrete, a paradox of instinctively understanding its presence without there being any sensation to prove it. 

But when has she ever submitted? It is only pride, that grim determination, that keeps her standing, bones locked in place.

_Clavicle_

A ghost of a touch on her shoulders, the imprint of a hand bearing down on her. Responsibility, and her thoughts turn to the leaden atmosphere of the winter solstice, when the three clans meet and affirm their vows, when the spirits turn disquieted and uncomfortably close. When she was younger, she could see them, apparitions profoundly eerie and disorienting. When she was younger the flames stood that much taller, twisted into awful awful shapes that only she could see. Then she grew and forgot, then she grew and turned to rationality. Now she remembers the flames in the night, the roar of the silence and her father’s voice as she was declared heir.

_Neck_

Paranoia breathes down her back. There are invisible eyes and she can feel them; they fixate, starting at the end of her hairline and slipping down. Drops of intent and fear slide down her ribs. Nerve endings startle at the softest breeze and the wind cuts, sharp enough to draw pain.

_Brain_

The mist she breathes pervades her body, they repress movement and thought, and her sight turns hazy—has she moved? Has she progressed? Or did she only think… the feeling of vertigo never fades and Ino abruptly realizes that she is falling.

(It is a dream, and thus Ino does not realize what is wrong, how she has been trapped in non-existence. She forgets the match, forgets why she is there, forgets that she is not in a real place. She forgets the intended result of the shintenshin.)

_Kidneys_

Sweat stings as it is blinked away, tracing a glistening sketch, a mockery of sorrow. Chills pass over her body; stabbing pains in her head, and her vision is spotted. She feels the bile rising in the back of her throat and the weakness spreads.

_Heart_

Stumbling beats catch themselves and steady, but not for long; they trip and there are sparrow’s wings against her ribs. 

_Which one should I go after first?_

Only a moment and then the mist condenses, falls, puddles.

The air clears. 

Sakura is lying on the blank white, eyes unseeing and an arm outstretched, reaching for something intangible with a half-hearted desperation. She is faded, washed out, and yet—there is something _too_ vivid about the image. Her head lolls to the side, and Ino shivers at the vacant gaze.

_You don’t belong here_

_Leave._

Ino turns and flees.

The shintenshin breaks.

.

.

.

On the floor of the preliminaries, two sets of eyes snap open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, the Yamanaka scare me...
> 
> Sakura too - who just casually throws off a mental invasion? I find the concept of "Inner" fascinating. Not only is Inner shown to be an almost seperate mental entity, Inner also seems to be Sakura's passion and "true" self. Without Inner, Sakura, at least in the beginning, is pretty insincere, false, and even indifferent... 
> 
> Anyhows, I hope you enjoyed! There will be one more chapter, coming tomorrow, and that will finish up the "starting point" of this plot bunny.


	3. first stage: splintering

_ It’s over; the shintenshin connected. _

The words leave Kakashi’s mouth, but the silence below makes him uneasy. Ignoring Naruto’s voice and the murmuring of the other genin, his single eye roams, observing, picking out details.

He hadn’t expected much of the match—Sakura is the weakest link of Team Seven. She will not let go of her obsession, and it hinders their whole team. (And perhaps he is to blame, perhaps he doesn't have the necessary hope to see past the shortcomings and look at potential, perhaps when he sees his team all he sees are broken people, children cast aside—but then again, he'd never  _ asked _ for a team. Vehemently opposed one, in fact. The Hokage is pushing him into a corner, forcibly retiring him, and all he can feel is the cold dread of quiet mornings and the apathy that creeps along his spine as he wanders through too familiar streets.) He wonders: how did the Academy fuck up the team placements  _ this much?  _ Sasuke and Naruto, he can understand; the boys play off each other, and to some extent they understand each other. But add a civilian who almost loathes Naruto and idolizes Sasuke, and who the boys chase after and avoid respectively, and his team is falling apart.

(Add a sensei who can’t look at two of his students correctly because they remind him of his failures, who never wanted a genin team, and it becomes a catastrophe.)

And yet—and yet Sakura’s movements are just  _ off _ enough for him to pay attention to the match. The Academy katas are expected; she hasn’t found a fighting style yet, her movements never flowing together, showing her lack of talent and experience in fighting (Sakura lacks the combat sense that the boys have, lacks the drive and motivation—), but there is something off in her movements before Ino used her clan’s jutsu. And then he realizes it.

Every strike, every movement, every  _ jutsu _ (though she knows precious few), is aimed to incapacitate or kill.

It is a focus that he hasn’t seen in the rest of her class. Most of the time, genin straight from the Academy,  _ especially _ in the civilian-born, focus more on their movements, on striking or defending, on the abstract katas, than the end result, the goal. The first thought is countering or landing a strike against their opponent, and it shows. But Sakura’s focus is  _ different _ —and that had been the reason the fight took as long as it did, because Ino is clearly stronger and more talented than his student is.

(Later, when he sees the Hyuuga fight [and who thought that pitting the main and branch family against each other was in  _ any _ way a good idea? The matches are rigged, he knows as much, so  _ someone _ must have screwed up  _ somewhere _ .] he will think that Sakura is surprisingly like Gai's student, in the worst ways. Because during that match, all of Neji's movements were aimed to cause maximum pain, just as Sakura's punches and kicks all strove to create fatal injuries. They both have an intensity to them that none of the rest of their age cohort has, a focus driven by something Kakashi is not willing to consider for long.)

Perhaps this is why he is uneasy even after the fight has, for all intents and purposes, been decided.

The two genin haven’t moved – it is as if they are paralyzed.

“Shintenshin? So Sakura is…”

Absentmindedly, Kakashi replies. “Yes. Supposedly, Sakura’s mind has been completely taken over by Ino. Her consciousness is inside Sakura.”

Kakashi pauses before the next words leave his mouth. 

He was going to predict that Ino would force Sakura’s body to forfeit, but somehow, his instincts are telling him to wait. (Shinobi hone their instincts into weapons, and unlike the Sharingan, he cannot turn this one off.)

It takes a minute for the audience to quiet; the whispers fading away to unease as not a sound leaves the two combatants. The silence hangs like an oppressive gaze, distilled expectation concentrated at the center of the ring. 

It takes two minutes for the proctor to shift and look up at the audience.

It takes another minute before Sakura’s body starts convulsing.

Asuma starts forward before Kakashi’s arm shoots out and stops him. He looks at the Copy-nin, at the spinning, spinning Sharingan and subsides. Gekko Hayate, upon noticing Kakashi’s intervention, stops his own movements towards the writhing body.

“Sakura’s mind. It’s rejecting the foreign chakra.” It is said under his breath, and the silver-haired nin frowns.

Asuma’s eyes widen. They both know the dangers of forcibly ejecting assimilating chakra, and they both know that it is  _ rare _ , perhaps two incidents ever recorded, that the Yamanaka’s jutsu was cancelled without even a semi-voluntary decision of the caster. Both times the caster and the victim had died within the day.

(Integrating chakra into another’s body is a delicate process, and the Yamanaka send their chakra directly into the mind. For the mind to reject the alien chakra means a struggle; like a compromised immune system, the victim’s chakra will attack anything deemed hostile carelessly and brutally, turning against itself in the process. The mind, which is a horrifically delicate organ, is turned into a battleground, and the damage of the fight can, and in most cases  _ will _ , destroy vital living functions and the mind of the caster.)

There is nothing that they can do; the body and the spirit will have to fight on its own. Any application of another chakra presence will only exacerbate the problem. 

(What they do not know or consider is that Sakura’s mind is  _ two _ . It is only half of her chakra that is fighting—while Outer deals with the intruder, Inner has been drawn back into the mind. Her chakra reinforces the battlefield, and while there are still impacts from the blows, the protective covering ascertains that the damage is absorbed by Inner. And since Sakura is only  _ semi- _ unconscious, and since Ino’s chakra is recognized and categorized in her mind as  _ friend _ , her chakra is more directed, prioritizing on pushing Ino’s chakra and mind  _ out _ . It doesn’t change much, but it is enough. She leaves Ino’s consciousness battered and whole instead of in shreds.)

Kakashi’s eye widens as the chakra snaps back to Ino and Sakura stops spasming.

Green and blue snap open, and suddenly they are sprinting towards each other, identical snarls on their faces. Kakashi doubts anyone else notices, but both Sakura and Ino have true antipathy on their features—perhaps a residue from the battle inside their minds. The Sharingan whirls; both combatants’ chakra reserves are running low,  _ dangerously low _ .

If the girls had fought further, if Hayate hadn’t declared the double knockout, then both genin would have had to be hospitalized for extreme chakra exhaustion.

This time, when Asuma moves to jump, Kakashi follows with a near imperceptible sigh. His uncute genin are becoming more work than he’d expected.

(Sakura is surprising him. It is both unexpected and entirely not appreciated.)

Asuma’s voice is full of disbelief as he looks Ino over. “Looks like we don’t need a medic—they should regain consciousness in thirty to fifty minutes.”

Kakashi nods, his Sharingan inspecting both girls.

“That was… surprising.” Asuma doesn’t say terrifying or impossible, but the implications are there. “I could understand Sasuke or Naruto—” Sasuke due to trauma and his brother’s ministrations, and Naruto because of the Fox. “but Sakura…”

Kakashi nods because he feels the same.

His team… sometimes he’s afraid of what they’ll grow into.

*I*I*

It does not start during her genin tests, both Iruka-sensei’s or Kakashi’s, it does not start during the awful mission to Wave, though she is terrified, and it does not start during Orochimaru’s attack in the Forest of Death. It is at twelve that she begins a slow sinking, and the beginning ends when she falls in her preliminary match. 

(It ends as Inner disappears.)

It is then that she drifts, drifts off into the waters, a ghost; the last strings that keep her anchored fray, and she is afraid. 

* * *

_ This is the end of the First Stage; it chronicles Sakura’s first irreparable shattering. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for staying with me till the end of this (honestly pretty short) exploration. I have this story planned out mostly in drabbles, but I'm also trying to reorganize them into some semblance of a chronological order so hopefully that won't take too long? 
> 
> Most of this was written years ago, and I'm definitely unsatisfied with some parts of it, but overall I think it turned out ok. Sakura definitely turned out a lot more introspective than she, at the age she is, has any right to be (because I remember being twelve and, well, my head was basically empty), but then again, Sakura is a shinobi, and shinobi are allowed to have /adult/ trauma.... right?
> 
> Anywho, thank you again for reading :) it really does mean a lot.

**Author's Note:**

> I have always found Sakura's outburst before the Chuunin Exams so very interesting. It's one of the first times that she really does think for herself. She goes directly against the wishes of Sasuke, gives him genuinely good advice (let's be honest, even though he won that match, he should never have been allowed in that ring), and is soundly ignored for bullheaded pride. 
> 
> A lot of popular points of Sakura's "awakening" I've seen have set the canonical divergence as the Wave Arc or after Sasuke deserts, and these are perfectly good points of divergence, but I've always thought that if Sakura were to change her mind a bit eariler than in canon (wait... does she actually ever change her mindset? erm....) it would be centered 1) on Sasuke and 2) the realization that this is not a game, that they will lose and there aren't any do-overs.
> 
> They got through Wave. Sure it might have been a bit traumatic, but that's easily overridden by the certainty that they'll always emerge on the other side without any sort of actual loss. Orochimaru is the first defeat they face. But there isn't any time within the Second Task to actually think or despair over that defeat - they're still on high alert at that point. It is only after that is over that Sakura realizes the threat canonically. Perhaps her practicality is driven mostly by fear, but her suggestion that Sasuke step down is not in any way a bad or erroneous solution. (He literally has the Cursed Seal on his neck - why haven't they told the relevant authorities?) 
> 
> Sasuke ignores her. 
> 
> I feel like this moment in canon should have been... explored more. Because sure, Sakura is used to Sasuke ignoring her, but that's usually over trivial things. This is literally a life-or-death situation, and he's /still/ ignoring her? That had to hit deep.


End file.
